Oscar Health raises $375 million from Alphabet

Mario
Schlosser, CEO and co-founder of Oscar.

Eduardo
Munoz/Reuters

• Oscar Health just raised an additional $375 million
  from Alphabet, bringing the health insurer’s total funding up
  to more than $1 billion. 
• As part of that raise, Oscar CEO Mario Schlosser
  
  told Wired, the company plans to expand beyond the
  individual healthcare exchanges and small employer market and
  into the Medicare Advantage market, caring for people 65 and
  older. 

Oscar Health just got a cool $375 million from Google’s parent
company to bring its tech-backed health insurance plans to more
people. 

In
total, the company has now raised more than $1 billion. Its
last-reported valuation was $3.2 billion. 

Co-founded in 2012 by Josh Kushner, whose brother
Jared a senior adviser to President Donald
Trump, Oscar Health is a health-insurance startup
that got its start operating on the Affordable Care Act’s
insurance exchanges. The goal is to be a more consumer-friendly
insurance option by integrating technology. It also works with
small businesses to provide health insurance. 

In 2019, Oscar plans to be in nine states, including Florida,
Arizona and Michigan.

As part of the additional funding, Oscar CEO Mario Schlosser

told Wired that the company plans to go beyond the
individual exchanges and small employer market and into the
Medicare Advantage market. When seniors in the US turn
65, they can choose to be part of either traditional Medicare or
Medicare Advantage, which is operated through private insurers
like Oscar and often provides additional healthcare
benefits.

Oscar’s plan to move into the Medicare Advantage market will put
it up against startups like
Clover Health and
Devoted Health. 

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